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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Bridges and slate

When I took Emily to work over the weekend she remarked the flags were down from the bridge. And the flower boxes!

The flowers are long past, but I thought the boxes stayed up year round. I supposed the garden club ladies were getting ready to hang winter greens, but still--no flags is like the end of Mom and apple pie.

Just a naked old bridge now, with its rusty rails and art deco--but wait! The garden club ladies got a grant to repair the railings they picketed Ohio Department of Transportation to have installed.

My first clue. All the center ironwork on the north side of the bridge is gone and the bottom rail is on the ground.

The support posts are coming down. That red truck is M & M Certified Welding. They keep more than a little of the township in repair; they put the lifter handle back on the old front end loader that gets the winter salt from the salt shed and into the dump trucks.The bridge is in good hands, we can move on up the hill and check in our our slate roof.

The daring young men were coming down for lunch, and I learned a lot. They will finish cleaning up this afternoon, shingles start up tomorrow. The actual shingling will take about three weeks. The black stuff is tar paper, "at all the critical ice and snow areas." The orange stuff is a less expensive alternative to tar paper.

This job has been a little longer, "we've replaced a lot of ancient wood up there!" As the schoolhouse went up in 1887, one might expect that. However, the building was "restored" in the 1990's. As long as someone has ascertained the structure can support slate shingles...

We talked about actually installing slate. The young man (I must get his name tomorrow!) said it's more difficult in cold weather; every shingle must be tacked down and a miss with the hammer shatters the slate. Since every slate is hand cut (must investigate that detail tomorrow), broken shingles increase the work. Since he cuts the slate his installers know he doesn't want to come up there and...

I mentioned it would be warmer tomorrow (high forties), and I was sorry they weren't doing the job in warmer weather. And he said this weather is perfect! "It's brutal up there in the summer; this kind of weather you can get your groove on and it's tile after tile after tile..." And he swung an imaginary hammer and shimmied a bit to demonstrate.

That's all for today, from the corner of Main and Riverview, where your reporter knows how to get around yellow tape.

I't a good looking bridge, I really like it in summer with the flowers.Slate roof always looks good not so many around here now mainly tile roofs now, but you can't beat a tin roof in the rain, nice sound as long as the rain is not too heavy.Merle............

Am loving tagging along with you through your town.... I'd be right at home there .... with my camera and hundreds of questions. I don't t know the population of your city, but it's definitely my kind of place!

In our area of france the slates were laid by drilling a hole, through which a wire crochet was passed and this was hung on horizontal wooden stringers. The chao who did our roof said you had to be careful as to length of crochet and slope of roof to avoid leaks.

We have flower boxes on a similar looking bridge in my town. I'm sure they're down by now, since we've had a number of killing frosts. Before Christmas, they string green garlands, making it quite festive.

Slate roofs are spendy. and heavy. I'm glad you have competent roofers on the job.

I like the way your little town maintains itself, with the help of its people of course. Out here it's often the case that nothing is done about anything until or unless there is an accident. Sad really, we pay taxes but don't see much for them in the way of small maintenances. We do have our new hospital and research centre though and a new railway station is being built closer to the showgrounds, all are pluses for the big dollars being spent on them. I hope the flower boxes and flags are put back once your bridge is repaired. I had no idea slate was so tricky to work with.

It's so wonderful that the ladies work so hard to keep that bridge looking beautiful during the summer. I remember our guys suffering through roofing our house so I guess it's good to do it in cooler weather.